Russia is emerging as an important donor state for the World Bank (WB), said Marsha McGraw Olive, Country Program Coordinator (Russia) at the World Bank and Andrei R. Markov, Senior Human Development Specialist (WB). At a 7 June 2010 Kennan Institute talk, the two speakers discussed Russia’s emerging role in development aid and its relationship with the World Bank.

Russia as a Global and Regional Player

At the World Bank, Russia is classified as an upper middle-income country, and is a “key player for collective action in global public goods,” said Olive. The country is essential for solutions to climate change as it both contains 22% of the world’s undisturbed ecosystems but is also the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Regionally, the country comprises three quarters of CIS GDP, and is interdependent with CIS states in the sectors of energy, transport, and labor.

Why the Increase in Development Aid?

In 2006, Russia hosted the World Bank summit for the first time and one year later,  the concept for development aid was adopted. Olive and Markov postulated three reasons why Russia decided to become a donor: it would like to be a global player in the G8; it wants to build on existing regional interdependency; and it wants to leverage crisis response funds in order to use them more effectively.  Indeed, Russia was the first to donate to the global rapid response fund at the World Bank when the food crisis hit. “Russia as a Donor” has therefore become a unique pillar in World Bank cooperation strategy.

Scope of Aid

The aforementioned 2007 concept for development aid outlined a 500 million dollar donation per annum. In reality, Russia was able to give $200-220 million in 2007-8, which was then increased to $800 million in 2009. Aid goes along multilateral, regional, and bilateral channels, in what Markov described as Russia’s way of “testing its ground and checking what works.” One major joint WB-Russia venture was the READ (Russian Education Aid for Development) program which focuses on the quality of education (versus a focus on enrollment) and is being implemented in Angola, Ethiopia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Mozambique, Tajikistan, Vietnam, and Zambia. As a donor, Russia also wants the WB to help it develop its own capacity for aid projects and training of new experts.

Developing Aid Framework

Russia visited every donor state around the world to accumulate information on their development infrastructure. Currently, aid is primarily connected with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance. Markov called decision-making “painful” however, as each decision must be discussed in full cabinet sessions, and aid infrastructure is understaffed. Public discourse in Russia on its status as a donor state is relatively nonexistent, but there is a WB survey currently being conducted to gauge Russian attitudes about development aid.

Role of the World Bank

A policy dialogue has been promoted via both the 2006 and 2010 Emerging Donors Conference, and the WB seeks to assist emerging donors with capacity building mechanisms, including garnering statistics, reporting, training, and communications for aid. Olive and Markov expressed the intention of the World Bank to continue working together with Russia on joint development aid ventures.

By Larissa Eltsefon   
Blair Ruble, Director, Kennan Institute